1967 Mercury Comet - It Ain't Paint!

`There's a saying that goes, "Everything old is new again." When it comes to our hot rods, nothing could be closer to the truth, as more and more dudes and dudettes look to the past for inspiration in the present. One of the up-and-coming retro trends is the vintage Stock car look. With their slammed suspensions, monster superspeedway gumball tires, and loud race car graphics, there's nothing else like those big-block-powered high-banks screamers from the days before NASCAR went all disco on us and mandated restrictor plates and small-blocks.

So when Car Craft scored a clean '67 Comet 202 sports coupe to use as a project car in association with Timber Wolf smokeless tobacco (read all about it in last month's issue), we knew it was a perfect candidate for the retro Stocker vibe. Right about now some of you might be thinking we have our wires crossed. After all, weren't all those Ford and Mercury Stock cars based on the fullsize Galaxie and Marauder? Yes and no. While FE 427-powered fullsize Stock cars were the Blue Oval rule for the first half of the '60s, the fact is the Mopar Hemis made life real difficult for them. Not only did the 426 Hemi hold a breathing advantage over the wedgehead 427, but the Mopar B-Body race cars were technically midsize cars . . . with less frontal area than the fullsize luxo-barge-based Merc and Ford racers.

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That is, until 1967. Finally caving in to pressure from Ford and Mercury race bosses, Nascar allowed the use of the smaller midsize Fairlane and Comet body in all competition events and even released a limited number of street-legal 427-powered Fairlanes and Comets in 1966 and 1967 to homologate the package for race duty-- both on the oval as well as on the dragstrip. So this gives us the green light to have some Stock car fun with the Comet's outward appearance.

But unlike the '60s, when everything was hand-lettered in paint and only the smallest sponsor logos were vinyl stick-ons, today we can turn to companies like JN Designs for vinyl decoration. Not only does this simplify the application process, it also makes removal possible if you wake up one day and want a change. Let's tune in as JN's Jim Naylor, with assistance from Gold Coast Customs' Russ Stevenson, adds retro Stock car vibes to the Comet. If you like what you see, you can call JN Design and Jim will work with you on a graphic treatment for your car.